Castlemartin

Castlemartin is a small village on the limestone plateau of south Pembrokeshire, best known for the military training area that takes its name. The Castlemartin Range has been used by the Army since the Second World War, and it occupies a large stretch of the coast between Freshwater West and Bosherston. That sounds like a drawback and is partly a benefit: the land has never been intensively farmed or developed, so the clifftop grassland is exceptionally rich in wildflowers and choughs, and the coast behind the red flags is as undisturbed as anywhere in Britain.

Access is controlled and non-negotiable. The road to Stack Rocks and the walk along the cliffs are open only when firing is not taking place, and the schedule is published locally — check before you set out, and never cross a red flag or a barrier. When it is open, the reward is the best cliff scenery on the south coast: Stack Rocks, two limestone pillars packed with guillemots and razorbills in spring and early summer, and the Green Bridge of Wales, a huge natural arch standing out from the cliff a short walk away, both reached on a level path from the car park.

The village itself has a church, a pub and the Castlemartin Corral, a curious circular stone-walled pound by the road. There is no shop and no beach in the village; Freshwater West's Atlantic sands are five minutes west, Bosherston and the lily ponds ten east, Pembroke fifteen. Nights are properly dark and the lanes are quiet — this is a working farming parish, not a resort.

Almost all accommodation here is farm-based: cottages and barn conversions with parking, gardens and space, at prices below the coastal villages. They suit surfers heading for Freshwater West, walkers using the range coast, and families who want somewhere calm with Pembroke and the south beaches close.

On the B4319 between Pembroke and Angle. Pembroke and Pembroke Dock stations, on the branch line from Swansea and Carmarthen, are fifteen to twenty minutes away by car.